Effect of Hydroxychloroquine in Hospitalized Patients with Covid-19.

N Engl J Med

The affiliations of the members of the writing committee are as follows: the Centre for Tropical Medicine and Global Health, Nuffield Department of Medicine (P.H., J.T., J.A.W., N.J.W.), Nuffield Department of Population Health (M.M., L.L., J.L.B., N.S., J.R.E., E.J., R.H., M.J.L.), the Medical Research Council (MRC) Population Health Research Unit (N.S., J.R.E., R.H., M.J.L.), University of Oxford, the Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (K.J., M.J.L.), and the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Oxford Biomedical Research Centre (M.J.L.), Oxford, University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust and University of Leicester, Leicester (M.W.), the Regional Infectious Diseases Unit, North Manchester General Hospital (A.U.), University of Manchester (A.U., T.F.), and Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust (T.F.), Manchester, the Research and Development Department, Northampton General Hospital, Northampton (E.E.), the Department of Respiratory Medicine, North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust, Stockton-on-Tees (B.P.), University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust and Institute of Microbiology and Infection, University of Birmingham, Birmingham (T.W.), James Cook University Hospital, Middlesbrough (J.W.), North West Anglia NHS Foundation Trust, Peterborough (J.F.), the Department of Infectious Diseases, Cardiff and Vale University Health Board, and the Division of Infection and Immunity, Cardiff University, Cardiff (J.U.), Roslin Institute, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh (J.K.B.), the School of Life Course Sciences, King's College London (L.C.C.), and the Intensive Care National Audit and Research Centre (K.R.), London, the NIHR Southampton Clinical Research Facility and Biomedical Research Centre, University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust and University of Southampton, Southampton (S.N.F.), the Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Lancaster University, Lancaster (T.J.), the MRC Biostatistics Unit, University of Cambridge, Cambridge (T.J.), and the Respiratory Medicine Department, Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust (W.S.L.), and the School of Medicine, University of Nottingham (A.M., E.J.), Nottingham - all in the United Kingdom; and the Mahidol Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit, Faculty of Tropical Medicine, Mahidol University, Bangkok, Thailand (J.T., J.A.W., N.J.W.).

Published: November 2020

Background: Hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine have been proposed as treatments for coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) on the basis of in vitro activity and data from uncontrolled studies and small, randomized trials.

Methods: In this randomized, controlled, open-label platform trial comparing a range of possible treatments with usual care in patients hospitalized with Covid-19, we randomly assigned 1561 patients to receive hydroxychloroquine and 3155 to receive usual care. The primary outcome was 28-day mortality.

Results: The enrollment of patients in the hydroxychloroquine group was closed on June 5, 2020, after an interim analysis determined that there was a lack of efficacy. Death within 28 days occurred in 421 patients (27.0%) in the hydroxychloroquine group and in 790 (25.0%) in the usual-care group (rate ratio, 1.09; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.97 to 1.23; P = 0.15). Consistent results were seen in all prespecified subgroups of patients. The results suggest that patients in the hydroxychloroquine group were less likely to be discharged from the hospital alive within 28 days than those in the usual-care group (59.6% vs. 62.9%; rate ratio, 0.90; 95% CI, 0.83 to 0.98). Among the patients who were not undergoing mechanical ventilation at baseline, those in the hydroxychloroquine group had a higher frequency of invasive mechanical ventilation or death (30.7% vs. 26.9%; risk ratio, 1.14; 95% CI, 1.03 to 1.27). There was a small numerical excess of cardiac deaths (0.4 percentage points) but no difference in the incidence of new major cardiac arrhythmia among the patients who received hydroxychloroquine.

Conclusions: Among patients hospitalized with Covid-19, those who received hydroxychloroquine did not have a lower incidence of death at 28 days than those who received usual care. (Funded by UK Research and Innovation and National Institute for Health Research and others; RECOVERY ISRCTN number, ISRCTN50189673; ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT04381936.).

Download full-text PDF	Source
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7556338	PMC
http://dx.doi.org/10.1056/NEJMoa2022926	DOI Listing

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